BimbleBee

Saturday, 15 March 2014

I fuhken did it!! I gave birth and I am bringing up a little boy! I
AM A KICKASS SUPER MUM and so proud! Here have a little picture

It
hasnt been easy. But we knew it wouldn't be. Tell a lie the being mum
part has been fucking easy. The birthing bit wasn't. I didnt have the om
shanti experience I would have liked (but life never turns out the way
you expect it too and there are definitely incredible lessons to be
learnt there - non-attachment, surrender, trust, and on a deeper level
my connection to my womb and how it works as an organ, exploring the
sacral chakra energy and how this in turn effects my relationships and
how I see myself and its larger significance as a powerhouse and the
seat of all human life on this planet....more on that later ) no orgasms
during birth unfortunately (DAMN IT), that would have been a nice way
to finish off a 31 hour agonising slog to the finish line. Instead I was
doped up on fake hormones and every painkilling drug I was allowed. As
soon as I got to 10 centimetres I pushed him out in 10 minutes with no
tearing or 'out. Labour really is labour.

All
of that aside.......HA! Funny how the brain does that, physically,
emotionally and mentally it was a pretty traumatic experience, not
because anything went drastically wrong, but because of the pure nature
of giving birth . You have 9 months to train for it, when it happens you
realise that nothing could ever prepare you for that experience, then
you have absolutely no time to recover or space for yourself to process
all of those emotions and left over hormones!All of that aside, what a
rediculous notion..... i shall rephrase.......

Despite a traumatic birth, despite a savage breakup...it was one of those ones that you knew died a death a long time ago but you kept dragging that corpse around when all it really did was act as a BIG FAT DEAD elephant in the room that both of us chose to ignore. EVEN THOUGH it meant sacrificing a little part of myself every time i tried to squeeze past it..never again... I have an incredible, amicable, beautiful little boy.
From day dot he has been easy going, latched on well, breastfed until 9
months when I had to return to work, has never given me any real
trouble.... we co-slept so I think that helped, I even took him inter-railing from England to Greece when things went tits up with his dad.
He the was 5 months old then. I am just in awe of him on a daily basis.
He has been so worth the agony, the heartache , the lonliness and
isolation, the feelings of self doubt and unworthiness. He is all. I
think it's important to point out here that none of this is projected
onto him. I don't cling to my poor 16 month old child as a 'thing' to
stop me feeling bad about myself. Quite the opposite, i rejoice in life
and all it has to offer to show him that the world is a beautiful place
because I chose to see it that way. And because it is. Baba and I are
both very independent people who have a connection that is beyond measure and he has just started
walking which opens up a whole new level of interactions we can have
with each other, other people, and our environment. He is happy, and
this is an achievement so I award myself daily by telling myself I am
kick ass. Cuz I am. I also tell myself daily I am intelligent,
fearsome, strong , beautiful, abundant. I am that I am. And I am currently falling in love with myself all over again. It feels good.

These are a few things I wrote post break up...not sure how I feel about them now but thought I'd post anyway...

'lightening struck my old oak heart but this bough did not break. I've been through this world 10 times before. The amens is yours to make.'

(I
think the amens is mine to make too. I fully take responsibility for
the state of that relationship and refuse to perpetuate the
perpetrator/victim dichotomy. I am sorry for my part in that mess...but
it is a nice 2 lines)

I started thinking about visual representations for our
relationship and i felt a bit like a crystal ball being bandied about by
a contact juggler.... so i came up with this

'I was happy to dance around your k stained fingertips careful not to kick up the dust because i knew that it would hurt you

but my soul grew tired and my body became occupied as my belly grew you recoiled,recoiled as i tried to get to you you recoiled , recoiled

I recoiled you recoiled i recoiled you recoiled so i sat. and held back. i tried to help you by cutting you some slack

as you racked up another line Id tell you that it'd all be fine, you'd say next month would be the time , and i dont think that thats a crime , I told the little girl inside that this time it would be different.

I didnt understand, though you gave me clues, that self flagellation has a selfish hue

and even though this may be true i still refuse to believe there's a dick inside of you ( hhahahahahahahaha)

Must finish the poem laughing. I
am pretty proud of that. I wrote it quite quickly in a car on the way
back from cornwall. I like how I started the poem by thinking about what
my relationship looked like visually as this now gives me an incredible
amount of insight. Lessons learnt. Moving
forward..growing...sharing...loving... myself.

By around 26 weeks the overwhelming urge to lick a dishwasher tablet had gotten the best of me. I stood there, feeling ashamed and oddly satisfied at the bitter lemony taste of Ecover's delectable dishwasher biscuits. Were had this urge come from? PREGNANCY. That time in your life when it is pretty much acceptable to eat anything. You hear of women eating coal, dirt, clothes (like me) , cigarette ash (ew) , burnt matches, rubber bands... the other end of the scale things like ice cubes. After a quick google search I realised I was one of the hundreds of women struck down with a serious case of Pica.

Pica is the craving and consumption of things that have no nutritional value. It seems to me to be a bizarre blip in the evolution of the species, but is said to come from where a woman is not receiving the right amount of nutrients in her normal diet, and is the bodys way of looking to subsititute this. Weird. Although there is no conclusive evidence PICA is linked to iron deficiency, and for me this was very much so the case. It really rang alarm bells as prepregnancy I was completely adverse to using anything withh strong chemicals in . All my body and cleaning products were natural. Having worked in numerous places like Neals Yard and Culpeper I have spent many years discussing with customers the impact of things like Sodium Laurel Sulphates and Parabens on human health and the environment, but now I couldnt get enough of them! I remember speaking to a customer in Culpeper who had had a horrible experience with harsh chemicals in body products....her hair fell out!! The doctors couldnt figure out where this was coming from, and as soon as she switched to natural her hair started growing back again. Its stories like this that really make you determined to do your research, not only into the chemicals but into the companies behind the chemicals also.

Anyway, I had been suffering from savage heartburn since early second trimester, and my friend had suggested that maybe I was craving cleaning products because they are alkaline based. Makes perfect sense. I went to go and see the doctor to tell her about the problem and she said 'well don't eat cleaning products'. That was it. No blood test or anything. It wasnt until I was about 32 weeks that my bloods were taken and my hb (haemoglobin count) was 8.9. When not pregnant your hb levels should be around 13 (between 11.5 and 16.5) for women and 13 to 18 for men. But I wasnt told any of this information. I had my bloods done at a midwife appointment and a letter arrived in the post that said I have a prescription to pick up from the Doctors surgery. No explanation of what the prescription was for, I had to ask the receptionist! No discussion of alternative options. Feeling pretty put out by the doctors facelessly pushing drugs onto me with no explanation of WHY i needed to take them, how low my hb count was , and what the implications of this were, I took matters into my own hands.

I was prescribed ferrous fumarate, which is notorious for giving you stubborn black poos and crippling stomach pains, like the ones you get when you have a pesky fart that wont come out. You know the ones. Not only that but the absorbtion rate is wack, with the body only being able to absorb between 3-10% of the iron from your dose. The nasty side effects come from your body excreting the rest. NO THANKS!

Being veggie the first thing I looked at ws my diet. A midwife and acupuncturist friend said that one of the tricks they give to pregnant ladies is to eat plain dark chocolate. Fine by me. I also started eating more leafy green vegetables, LOADS of spinach (my bf had been bangin on about this one for AAAGES) , figs, apricots (the brown, unsulphured ones, why you would want to eat ones with sulphur in I dont know) weetabix, tofu, and toasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds.

This was all good and well apart from my boughts of savage heartburn and my taking rennies to stop them. It wasnt until a midwife appt at 36 wks when I read a leaflet in the waiting room that said that antacids INHIBIT the absorption of iron. FUCK!! I had been munchin on these bad boys like there was no tomorrow. She then told me that I wouldnt be able to give birth in the midwife led unit because my iron levels were still too low (had gone up to 9, whoopdy fucking do) and needed to be at 10 to be admitted. Why noone had informed me of this connection before is a joke when I had been described a number of times gaviscon. One of the nurse attendant people then said that there was no chance my iron was going to go up in time for birth. I do like a challenge. There was no chance I was giving birth on the one born every minute ward.

So thats when I turned to FLORADIX and SPATONE. I took both. Being different kinds of organic iron (spatone comes from iron rich water from a spring in Wales) with different absorption levels I figured my body would be absorbing LOADS!! I was taking 10ml twice a day of the floradix and two sachets of the spatone. I have had a wonderful experience with them, no tummy troubles and energy levels almost back to normal! This is quite a pricey way to do it, but I was given spatone by a friend and bought the floradix. These are always presents you can ask for at your blessingway/baby shower, its a wonderful way for your friends and family to support your pregnancy. Dont forget to take with orange juice, as vitimin c aids the absoption of iron.

Ive bin boshing mad amounts of spinach and other green things and have been laying off the sock chewing so thats a good sign. Having more bloods taken on tuesday so wish me luck.

Last nights rain washed away the last little dingleberries of doubt and I woke up feeling like we could conquer mount everest. Its really quite amazing what a hug and a kiss can do. Which I think is a testament to the importance of feeling nurtured and secure in early childhood, but Ill keep those thoughts for another blog post.

Its been a long old slog but we have finally got our shit together (sort of), feeling comfortable airing our dirty laundry infront of each other, in order to iron out the creases. I am now full enough to pop , no longer that fond of my Dr Robotnik rotundness. Its just awkward, achy and annoying.

I feel great. Excited about the arrival of our son, excited about what the future holds for me and the dada, excited about exploring the opportunities that Oxford presents (it DOES present some, I promise!) , and excited about contributing to the soul of this city, baby in tow, fuelled with a belly full of love and a head full of fizz.

About Me

I enjoy drinking loads, and eating loads too.using my hands, using my feet,jigling my body to electronic music,phatty basslines,making things,trees,love,beautiful insides people,getting gribbly,foliage,the shire,sunny festivals,getting indulged,big basslines,procrastinating,losing all concept of time, talking to the people that noone gives a chance,fannypacks,quirky people,wierd people,that bit just before sunrise where everythings a bit disjointed,foxes and badgers,the sun,moon,drum circles, the sparkliness of my skin when the sun shines, mushrooms ,trying to practise capoeira but ending up picking a selection jungle animals to imitate,cheese, the cheese sweats,walking around in a duvet, metamorphisising.
Unabashadly making the transition from maiden to mother....baby due in November